Mothers and Daughters (18 page)

‘Don’t believe a word she says either about her devoted husband, the Battle of Britain pilot. He was a fitter in RAF maintenance. The nearest he got to a Spitfire was scraping the crashed ones off the tarmac. There is one poor adopted son who was packed off to some boarding institution at the age of four and calls her “the mater”. Poor Sadie, she’s a monster and as fake as a glass eye but I keep her on as a warning. She did her morale bit in the war and kept the theatres busy in the fifties, but everyone’s home watching TV now. She needs a hit song – a novelty song would do it. Are you interested?’

‘I’ll try anything once,’ Rosa gulped.

‘That’s the spirit. Be professional, stay in her shadow and you’ll be fine. Step into her limelight and you’ll be out faster than Stirling Moss. But remember, go plain or she’ll have you for breakfast. Wear black to show off her glitz.’

‘No one wears glitz but Alma Cogan,’ Rosa quipped, thinking of the glamorous young singer.

‘I know, dearie. Sadie still thinks she’s in the fifties … Having second thoughts? It’s all I have on the books.’

‘I’ll take it. I might not get through the audition.’

‘Turn up like you are now and you’ll not get past the door, but think of it as a performance. She’s got a casting in the Midland Hotel. Sing whatever she asks you and fawn over her past glories and you’ll be fine.’

Rosa sat amongst the hopefuls in the ballroom of the hotel, waiting for the arrival of the Queen of Sheba. Looking around at the competition she could spot Dilly’s girls at once. They were dressed in black, flat shoes, padded jumpers, no make up except round the eyes and mouth. The others were kitted out in tight pants, Brigitte Bardot hairstyles and the highest of winkle-picker heels.

It wasn’t going to be the best of jobs but she’d gone home to Grimbleton trying to pretend it was her big break. Mamma was rushing round the salon telling everyone her daughter was going to sing with Sadie Lane. What if she didn’t pass muster?

There was a fanfare of yapping dogs and two full-sized poodles rushed into the room. One cocked its leg on a gilt chair and sprayed the floor. Then came Mr Battle of Britain with his cavalry twill trousers, tweeds and moustache. Rosa thought of the famous cookery artist and her husband, Fanny Cradock and Johnny.

Sadie made her regal entrance wrapped in a mink stole over a silvery brocade dress, with beautiful shoes
that showed off a pair of still shapely calves and ankles, but the rest … definitely outsize, corseted with steel to make some indentations where a waist should be and emphasise the sort of cleavage you could lose a biscuit down and never find the crumbs. Her white-blonde hair was fluffed up like a meringue nest, and her make-up was an inch thick. She was the star, the Queen Mother, the shark in this fish pond of minnows.

Rosa sank back into her chair. Who would Sadie be swallowing?

‘Sadie’s got a head so big, I bet no one could get past her on the stairs,’ whispered the girl in black next to her. ‘You must be with Miss Sherman too.’ She grinned, eyeing Rosa up and down.

‘How did you guess?’ Rosa winked. ‘Rosa Santini.’

‘Melanie Diamond … break a leg.’

‘You too,’ Rosa smiled.

Miss Lane sat on her throne, lining them all up on stage and shuffling them around without anyone singing a word.

‘What do you think, Reggie?’

He shrugged his shoulders and left her to it. Half the girls were dismissed there and then.

‘I only want three of you,’ Sadie barked, parading up and down the remaining ten, eyeing them all carefully. ‘You.’ Rosa stepped forward. ‘You next.’ Melanie joined her. ‘And you over there … what’s your name?’

The plump girl blushed. ‘Gabriella Blenkinsop.’

‘You can be Gabby. Now sing the music you were given. I want action and timing.’ ‘How Much is that Doggie in the Window?’ was the novelty song, and they all sang dutifully, trying to look together. Gabby had a good alto voice and she harmonised well with the other two.

‘Stop! That’s enough, Reggie,’ she ordered the husband who was playing on the piano. ‘You’ll have to do. All dark, same height and blend OK. We shall think of a name for you. Who’s your agent?’

‘Miss Sherman,’ Rosa offered, and the others nodded.

‘She knows what I like. I’ll sort it out with her then.’

That was it: no hand-shaking or formal welcome, more like class dismissed, and an order to return to a studio in Manchester on the next Monday morning. Rosa was going to have to rush back north, pack her bags and head home. Mamma would want to come and see her perform, and them all looking like a dog’s dinner. Perhaps better to say nothing.

‘I’m supposed to be at school,’ said little Gabby, who needed no padding at all.

‘It’s a job. We’re on the circuit – who knows what might turn up? It’ll be fun,’ Melanie encouraged them.

‘With that monster?’ Rosa giggled, and they huddled together.

‘Welcome to the madhouse. Let me get this kit off. I’m sweating.’ Melanie pulled some foam out of her waistband.

‘Me too. How will we stand it under the spotlights?’

‘Mine’s real,’ Gabby sighed.

‘Don’t worry, she’ll soon sweat it off you, but let’s get a contract before we reveal all. We have to make her look glam and thirty,’ Melanie said, looking at her watch.

‘Thirty. She’s nearly fifty. Fair, fat and fifty, I reckon! What does that make us, then?’ Rosa answered.

‘Employed!’ Melanie laughed. ‘We can eat at the end of the week, pay rent and buy nylons. Who cares if we look like Baa baa black sheep, three bags full behind her?’

‘I do. I was hoping to be a Vernons Girl or a new Beverley Sister. My mamma thinks I’m sharing the bill,’ Rosa sighed. It was so important for Mamma to think she was a star.

‘Don’t say anything. Just do the job, let her think what she likes and no one will recognise us in this rigout. I dread to think what she’ll drape us in. Sackcloth and ashes … to show off all her sequins. We’ll be part of the backdrop curtains,’ Melanie added, her black eyes flashing with mischief.

‘She’s the one who ought to be in black,’ Gabby offered.

‘Shall I tell her or shall you?’ Rosa asked, and they burst out laughing again. ‘How am I going to keep a straight face watching that derrière swaying in the breeze?’

‘We’re professionals, doing whatever is required for
as long as we can. If she gets too bad we’ll have our revenge,’ Melanie whispered.

‘How?’ Gabby was all ears.

‘Don’t know yet, but we’ll think of something.’

‘You’re on!’ Rosa said. ‘See you on Monday. I’ve got to dash.’

There was just time to get a train back to York and on to Scarborough after seeing Miss Sherman and signing up, time to ring up the salon to tell Maria the good news, or at least to tell her a version that might have her mother putting a notice in the
Mercury
.

The band stayed in London all through June, much longer than they expected, hoping for a contract, living out of the van, cadging from friends where they could, but when the money ran out they took to busking with guitars and tambourines, under subways and stations, in parks until they were moved on.

Connie went to visit Auntie Diana, Mama’s old friend who was nursing at St Thomas’s Hospital and sharing a flat nearby with her friend Hazel. They were kindness itself, inviting her friends for a meal and a chance to bath and freshen up.

Connie was ashamed of all their scruffy clothes and ragged hair, but Diana took all in her stride. It was good to feel clean and tidy, and eat proper food from a table, not some hurried mush from a transport café.

‘You young people do things differently, I must say,’ Diana lectured them in her pukka voice. ‘All I ask is you keep in touch with your families. Susan is worried. She asked me to look out for you. I know you’d not pass my door but you must be fair to your families too.’ Connie sensed there was a lot more she could say but was holding back out of politeness and reserve.

Diana was one of the original Olive Oils who came up for Mama’s funeral and promised to keep an open door if ever she needed to talk over things. Diana was so correct, and the band all rose to the occasion, behaving themselves like squaddies before an officer.

To Connie she was a reminder of home and all she’d sacrificed to live this exciting adventure. If only it wasn’t so scary having to sing with Marty in doorways in a strange city, but she was so besotted with him and anxious to please.

One night she sat outside their van under the July stars and revised that very first ballad written ages ago, in her school exercise book.

‘The colours of my love are like a rainbow in the sky, the colours of my love I give to you, midnight blue and silver, reflections in your eyes … the colours of my love I give to you.’ The words just fell into a tune in her head but she didn’t tell anyone that these little songs often burst out of nowhere, waking her up at night, begging to be written down before they were forgotten.

Usually she turned over, not wanting to disturb anyone, and by morning they were almost gone, just a haunting line that would nag away all morning.

The band had trawled the demo tape around the record companies to no avail. The Carroll Leavis audition didn’t materialise but Tony Amos came down, as promised, to find them a gig in a coffee bar in Camden Town.

‘I wanted you to be in the Two Is,’ Sandra sighed, looking out of the café window and down at the dusty curtains. ‘All the students are on their vacs … it’ll be dead.’

‘We have to look on this as a start; it’s better than the pavement,’ Connie defended.

‘O-ooh! Who’s talking “we” all of a sudden? You’re not in the group yet,’ Sandy snapped. ‘I could do what you’ve done so far.’

‘Not with that foghorn you call a voice,’ Marty jumped into Connie’s corner. ‘Connie sings real good and she’s on the beat.’

‘Pardon me for breathing, I’m sure.’ Sandy backed off. ‘Jack says you don’t pull birds to listen if there’s a girl on the stage.’

‘Then Jack should tell me himself, not hide behind your skirt.’

Sandra stomped off in a huff.

‘If only she knew he’s been trying to ditch her for weeks, but she clings like a limpet,’ Marty confided. ‘We suggested she got herself a job as a waitress but
Sandy’s here for the ride and miffed that you get to sing.’

Connie felt a million dollars after this back-handed compliment.

It was Lorne Dobson who voiced everyone’s frustration later in the evening. ‘I thought we were going abroad, not camping up in some back alley with rats sniffing round our rubbish.’

‘Patience, mate. We’ve plenty of time, yet. The gig’s not for ages. We’ve got to make our mark down here,’ Marty argued. They were all feeling hot and dusty, hungry and disappointed, and the cracks were showing. No one was eager to snatch them up to make records. This coffee bar was not exactly big time, but it was all there was.

Connie plucked up courage to ask if she could sing ‘Colours of My Love’ when they were busking. ‘It’s just a little thing that came to me.’ Strumming a few chords, she was shaking as she started to sing the melody. Marty listened, and the other boys, then joined in when she repeated it.

‘You have something there, the words … very romantic. Nice one, Con!’

‘I wrote it for you,’ she whispered, gazing at him.

‘Great, we can use it as a breather between the fast numbers. Play it again.’

‘It’s not exactly our style,’ said Des, breaking the spell.

‘Sure thing, but it’s a gentle ballad … Connie will sing it well.’

This is how she got to rehearsing and it made its debut the following evening to a smoky half-empty café in a heat wave.

‘You should write them down, music score, everything,’ Marty suggested afterwards, when they were alone. ‘Have you any others?’

‘Not really, just ideas, lines … They appear first thing in the morning or in the middle of the night.’

‘Keep a jotter by your sleeping bag and wake me up if you have a good tune. We could do with some fresh stuff to take to Switzerland.’

‘When are we going?’

‘I got the dates wrong – not until the end of August, so we’ll just have to busk our way through the summer for food and petrol. This getting discovered is taking longer than I thought,’ Marty sighed.

‘But it’s great being together … living over the brush,’ she laughed, thinking about the nights they shared in the sleeping bag.

Marty flushed. ‘I’d better do something about that. We don’t want any accidents, do we?’

‘Sandra says there’s a pill you can take to stop the chance of conceiving. You have to take it every night … I know you’re not allowed to take precautions,’ Connie said, trying not to burn up, ‘but I’m not a Catholic so it’s OK what I do. Shall I find out more?’

‘You’re a doll! What would we do without you to organise us?’

What she didn’t tell him was that Diana had taken her aside in the kitchen and told her if she was old enough to be living with her boyfriend then she was old enough to prevent pregnancy and to get herself to a special clinic where they would kit her out with a device she must put inside her, covered with cream, and she’d be safe. ‘Just tell them you’ll be getting married soon, no names, no pack drill. They’ll fit you up properly. Better safe than sorry. You owe that to your family.’

She’d gone with Sandra, but the whole business was messy and it needed a toilet or washroom to set herself up. Every time she squeezed the cap ready to insert it, it shot across the dirty floor and she had to start all over again. A pill would be so much better, but they were expensive and beyond her budget. How unromantic it was to have to guess if they were going to have sex, but better than the alternative. Then she sang a little ditty to the tune of ‘The Big Ship Sails on the Alley Alley Oh’ to relax herself: ‘My dutch cap sails on the bathroom floor, the toilet floor, the washroom floor. My dutch cap sails all over the floor till the first day of September!’

But she’d taken herself in hand and got control. Now she really felt a responsible woman, not a love-struck teenager. Marty could love her more frequently if he knew they were protected. She thought of Mama and Su, who’d not any control over their bodies. If they had, she and Joy wouldn’t exist. What would
Mama have thought of all this? It was so painful to know she’d never see her again, that she wasn’t at home waiting for news. If Mama was still alive, would she have dared to do this?

Perhaps it was time to write home and make her peace with Granny. She didn’t want them to think her ungrateful for all they’d done for her, but now she was free of constraints, she was going to make the most of it.

Marty was feeling more and more anxious as the summer rolled on. Their dreams were just not happening. No one was interested in the group. At least there were three coffee bars that gave them food and drinks in return for some numbers, but their reception was lukewarm. Everyone was raving about the R and B sessions at the Marquee Club in Oxford Street. There were new West London boys on the block called the Rolling Stones, London’s answer to the Beatles. He’d gone to see them and they were wild. Beside them, the Rollercoasters were tame, yesterday’s men. No wonder they weren’t getting signed up.

He’d asked Tony Amos to watch their act to give him some encouragement, but his words had only made things worse.

‘To be brutal, Marty, on last night’s performance, it’s never going to work. You’ve gone too samey … no distinctive sound or beat and no sex appeal. Sorry,
but I don’t see it happening. You’ve seen the Stones. The girls love wild and raunchy, not
Ready, Steady
,
Go!
safe stuff. That girl’s got to go for a start.’

‘Who, Connie?’

‘The girls out there want to know you’re available, you see what I’m getting at?’

Marty wasn’t going to let Tony dismiss her like that. ‘She’s singing her own stuff. Her voice is another Judith Durham.’

‘But she’s no looker. Leggy and wild-haired, fine for a folk singer but not if you want to hit the big time. I want you more wild gypsy rover, sex on legs. Whatever happened to the tight leathers? Snake-hipped and scruffy is the next big thing, and what’s with all this ballad stuff? No one wants ballads. Smoochy fifties crooners are dead in the water for this generation. Give them sex, lots of bump and grind. “Colours of My Love” is fine for the likes of Dickie Valentine and folk songs are two a penny.’

‘Connie wrote that for us,’ Marty replied, sick to the stomach at Tony’s attack.

‘Ditch it, let her go sell her itsy-bitsy tunes. They won’t cut in this market. To be honest, it’s time you went solo. I can do far more with Ricky Romero than with the whole shebang. Go with the times, leave the no-hopers behind, get off your lazy butt and go solo.’

Marty stepped back in shock. Was Tony giving him the come-on, getting his hands on his real investment? ‘But they’re my mates,’ he argued.

‘So? Friends will want the best for you.’

‘We have a gig on the Continent.’

‘Do it and then walk away. Go solo and build up another sound. Everyone’s doing it, shedding the slack, ditching the birds in favour of a better image. If you want to make it in this business, ditch the steady chick, ditch the group and stay close to the London scene. You’ve got the looks. You’re carrying the rest of them but you don’t need personal trappings at this stage in your career. You’ll get plenty of that when you’re famous. Make a sacrifice now. I’m telling you for your own good … Well, you did ask me for my opinion. It wasn’t what you wanted to hear but what you needed to hear. That’s what I’m paid for.’

They had a beer and a smoke in a backstreet pub, then Tony left. Marty was stunned. What was being asked of him was unthinkable: to ditch his friends, walk away, tell Con to go home. He wouldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it. And yet he wanted to be a big star, make his name and prove homespun Grimbleton lads could break into the big time. What was worse was that in his heart he knew Tony’s cruel words had the ring of truth in them. That was why the doors of the recording studios were shutting in their faces.

He thought about the gossip. Loads of bands split, reshaped. Even the Beatles hadn’t been without their ruthless shake-ups. Guys reinvented themselves with new names and new acts and new musicians, but
loyalty was something he couldn’t ditch lightly. The tour must go on and he would have to distance himself somehow, make the separation as painless as possible. Fat chance! The others would hate him for what he was contemplating now, and then there was Connie. Oh hell! What was he going to do about her?

They were halfway to Dover in the van when Connie sensed something wasn’t right. Was it back home? She wanted to stop right there to find a call box, but they were late. There had been this niggling feeling in the pit of her stomach all week, some sixth sense, a butterfly flutter that wouldn’t go away. Marty had taken to walking off by himself, and when she offered to come, he’d waved her away. ‘Need to think.’

His lovemaking was rushed and most nights he turned his back on her. Was it something in Grimbleton, bad news from home?

Des drove, cursing. They were late for the evening ferry. Connie felt a surge of excitement when she saw the Channel port in the distance. At last she was going abroad. At last she was going to leave England for another adventure.

There was a deafening silence from home. She’d given them all Diana’s address but none of them was writing. What did she expect after running away? She thought about Joy and how she was settling for so little: a Grimbleton suburb, hubby and baby in pram
with a dribbling nose. Joy was fast becoming a stranger. Connie still had that vision of her enveloped in a white veil on her wedding day like some virgin sacrifice, and she experienced again that flutter of unease. Had Joy had an accident? Was their friendship really at an end now she was married? At least Rosa wrote back to say she was touring with a backup group and it was hard work, and not to tell Maria it was a rubbish job.

Now the band was on its way to some international student convention on the Swiss border. It was going to be so exciting except that Sandra talked non-stop until Connie’s ears were aching. Then the exhaust began to roar and the van spluttered, drawing attention from passing cars.

‘I thought you said they’d changed the exhaust for us?’ Marty yelled at Jack, watching his black eyebrows knitting together into a frown.

‘There wasn’t the cash It’ll do later. What’s a puff of smoke between friends?’ he shouted, but Marty was not amused.

There wasn’t time to phone home before they embarked, and soon Connie watched the waves crashing against the ship in the darkness while some of the others rushed to the loos to be sick. Only then she felt again the instinct to call home. She watched Marty on the top deck, pacing the boards, lost in his own world. His face was stern and he kept shaking his head as he talked to himself.

‘Can I help?’ she offered. ‘You look worried.’